Insolvency for Alpine

Contractor Alpine Bau has gone into voluntary insolvency in the Austrian courts, a decision it said was a result of both delays in the divestments planned by Alpine and the steady deterioration in the trading situation since the first quarter of 2012.

Alpine is the second largest contractor in Austria after Strabag, and stood at number 28 in last year’s CE-100 league table of contractors.

Fellow Austrian contractor Porr is said to be interested in buying some of the company.

Alpine is a subsidiary of Spanish-based FCC Construcción working in Central and Eastern European markets. FCC said it had made a provision for an after-tax charge amounting to €289 million for 2013 as a result of the Alpine situation.

Net financial debt associated with Alpine amounted to €625 million in the first quarter, it said. FCC’s 2012 accounts included losses in Alpine amounting to €420 million.

FCC said that contingencies that materialised in the last two months made it advisable to seek “a new equilibrium in its finances”. However, the lack of consensus with all financiers with regard to this readjustment led to this decision to go into insolvency.

FCC said that this event would not materially affect the goal of its current strategic plan, where the objectives were to boost operating cash flow, enhancing operating efficiency and reducing debt. It said it maintained its targets in cash flow generation, EBITDA and net debt within its strategic plan.

Alpine appointed Arnold Schiefer as its new CEO from the start of April. At the time of that appointment, it said it had recently reached an agreement with the Austrian government and its main creditors to restructure the group and refinance its debt.